Cause and Affect
by Jet Wolf
Summary: "Mercury's computer was screaming, its incessant beep like a needle shoved repeatedly into her brain. Her visor spewed information, critical alerts and frantic warnings. Each new piece of information was coolly noted, dispassionately processed, and summarily ignored." [Inspired by the "Last Soldier Standing" prompt on Tumblr. I caution you that this is not a happy 'fic.]


**Standard disclaimer**: The characters aren't mine. This should come as no surprise. I am simply a teller of stories that occasionally claw their way desperately out of my head.

**Notes**: This was entirely the fault of sailorfailures on Tumblr who, about a week ago posted a lovely bit of art that wrecked everybody's day, then proposed the idea of drabbles featuring a Senshi being the "last soldier standing". And that was interesting but I ignored it. Until last night when I started to see some of this stuff. And then this morning when I started to see more. And then I could see nothing else. I had to get it out of my head, and here we are. Of course, now it will probably be in yours. Sorry about that. Merry Christmas, everyone!

**Caution:** Violence. Death. Fun times. This is not a happy 'fic.

_(22 December 2012)_

* * *

**Cause and Affect**

Mercury's computer was screaming, its incessant beep like a needle shoved repeatedly into her brain. Her visor spewed information, critical alerts and frantic warnings. The endless circle of red dots was pushing closer. She took all this in without comment. Each new piece of information was coolly noted, dispassionately processed, and summarily ignored.

Her eyes surveyed the battlefield and the corpses that littered it. Demons, by the hundreds. Her visor obediently told the story wherever her gaze lingered.

_Cause of death: decapitation_

_Cause of death: hemorrhage_

_Cause of death: incineration_

The computer uttered a new sound, and Mercury acknowledged the appearance of another portal without reaction. Still, the sound had startled her, and she was now seeing the very things she was concentrating so hard on not seeing.

A flash of white, its purity an obscene stain on the grey wasteland.

_Cause of death: cardiectomy_

That description is entirely insufficient, Mercury mentally criticized, and her brow furrowed in disapproval. Mars' heart hadn't been **removed **it had been **pulped**. The demon had thrust its talons into her chest with no more effort than a hand pushing through a stream of water. Bones were casually shattered, and the demon had grinned with feral satisfaction as its claws found the still-beating prize, and it had **squeezed**.

Mercury knew. She had watched it happen. Was watching it happen right now. Again. And again. Had the visor been in recording mode? Was it malfunctioning with an eternal playback? A quick diagnostic proved otherwise; the visor reported 100% operational effectiveness.

But "cardiectomy". Honestly. What was the point of all this magical high-tech equipment if it couldn't even get Rei's death right?

_Number of conversations lasting well beyond midnight: 186_

Now she had seen one, Mercury observed that her eyes were drawn to the next. Interesting. Inconvenient, but interesting.

_Cause of death: blunt-force trauma_

Again, wholly inadequate. Venus' beautiful face was missing, erased by a bloody mass of bone and cartilage.

Venus had been ordering Jupiter to restrain the Princess, hysterical after Mars fell. She had turned to Mercury for a status update when the demon grabbed her by the back of the head and, in one swift motion, driven her face-first into a nearby outcropping. It pulled back and repeated the motion over and over until the sharp cracks had become wet thuds. Jupiter had started to Venus' side, but the demons were coming faster now, and she had only moments to scoop up Sailor Moon in one arm and Mercury in the other before their position was overrun.

Mercury had counted nine times that Venus was propelled into the rock before the tableau was consumed by a swarm of monsters. She thought it likely Minako was dead by the fourth.

_Number of strawberry milkshakes shared: 44_

Jupiter had carried them up a small hill before running out of places to run. For a moment, Jupiter and Mercury shared a glance. Was Jupiter apologizing? The visor never saw fit to interpret things like that. Then she was gone. A ferocious battle cry ripped from her throat as she charged back down the hill where the throng of demons was thickest.

She summoned her birthright from the heavens, screaming in pain and rage as she gathered it into herself, as much as she could stand, then somehow beyond. The noise and light acted like a beacon, and as the demons converged on Jupiter, she let go.

_Cause of death: electrocution_

Corpses fanned out in a circle around Jupiter's still-smoking body. That was twice now that Mako had killed herself like this. Mercury angrily noted her visor neglected to mention that detail.

_Number of hugs: 97_

Mercury turned to the small hill at her back, easily picking out one body amidst dozens, many still half-embedded in fatal blocks of ice.

_Cause of death: cervical fracture_

The only thing that kept Mercury from believing Sailor Moon was merely asleep was her eyes. Even from this distance she could see them, paralyzed forever in a rigor of heartbreak and terror.

And the visor with its incessant, blinking message. _Cervical fracture. Cervical fracture._

As Jupiter's lightning exploded, the demons nearest them, beyond the reach of Jupiter's powers, were distracted for a brief but vital moment. Mercury acted on pure instinct. She instantly doused the area with water, the most she had ever summoned in her life, leaving only a small dry circle for herself and Sailor Moon. The lightning thrived within, its desire to protect the Princess outliving even its mistress. As the lightning arced through the remaining demons, Mercury supercooled the water to ice, ensuring that if death didn't come one way, it certainly would another.

Then she had turned, and looked into those eyes.

Usagi's neck had been snapped, so violently her head was nearly twisted from her shoulders. The Princess was dead.

_Number of smiles that brightened even the darkest day: thousands_

Thousands.

Mercury climbed back up the hill, stepping over chunks of ice and charred remains. At the summit, she reached out a trembling hand and gently closed Usagi's eyes.

_Cervical fracture._

She touched the stud of her earring, dismissing the visor. A moment later and the computer was stored, and finally the accursed beeping was gone. In its place rushed the groaning of an innumerable demon horde, but Mercury paid it no heed.

Then there was just Ami Mizuno. She sat next to her first and best friend, and waited.

_Number of regrets: none_


End file.
